Kitabı oku: «Nuts and Nutcrackers», sayfa 9
A NUT FOR THE PENAL CODE
It has often struck me that the monotony of occupation is a heavier infliction than the monotony of reflection. The same dull round of duty, which while it demands a certain amount of labour, excludes all opportunity of thought, making man no better than the piston of a steam-engine, is a very frightful and debasing process. Whereas, however much there may be of suffering in solitude, our minds are not imprisoned; our thoughts, unchained and unfettered, stroll far away to pleasant pasturages; we cross the broad blue sea, and tread the ferny mountain-side, and live once more the sunny hours of boyhood; or we build up in imagination a peaceful and happy future.
That the power of fancy and the play of genius are not interrupted by the still solitude of the prison, I need only quote Cervantes, whose immortal work was accomplished during the tedious hours of a captivity, unrelieved by one office of friendship, uncheered by one solitary ray of hope.
Taking this view of the matter, it will be at once perceived how much more severe a penalty solitary confinement must be, to the man of narrow mind and limited resources of thought, than to him of cultivated understanding and wider range of mental exercise. In the one case, it is a punishment of the most terrific kind – and nothing can equal that awful lethargy of the soul, that wraps a man as in a garment, shrouding him from the bright world without, and leaving him nought save the darkness of his gloomy nature to brood over. In the other, there is something soothing amid all the melancholy of the state, is the unbroken soaring of thought, that, lifting man above the cares and collisions of daily life, bear him far away to the rich paradise of his mind-made treasures – peopling space with images of beauty – and leave him to dream away existence amid the scenes and features he loved to gaze on.
Now, to turn for the moment from this picture, let us consider whether our government is wise in this universal application of a punishment, which, while it operates so severely in one case, may really be regarded as a boon in the other.
The healthy peasant, who rises with the sun, and breathes the free air of his native hills, may and will feel all the infliction of confinement, which, while it chains his limbs, stagnates his faculties. Not so the sedentary and solitary man of letters. Your cell becomes his study: the window may be somewhat narrower – the lattice, that was wont to open to the climbing honeysuckle, may now be barred with its iron stanchions; but he soon forgets this. “His mind to him a palace is,” wherein he dwells at peace. Now, to put them on something of a par, I have a suggestion to make to the legislature, which I shall condense as briefly as possible. Never sentence your man of education, whatever his offence, to solitary confinement; but condemn him to dine out, in Dublin, for seven or fourteen years – or, in murder cases, for the term of his natural life. For slight offences, a week’s dinners, and a few evening parties might be sufficient – while old offenders and bad cases, might be sent to the north side of the city.
It may be objected to this – that insanity, which so often occurs in the one case, would supervene in the other; but I rather think not. My own experience could show many elderly people of both sexes, long inured to this state, who have only fallen into a sullen and apathetic fatuity; but who, bating deafness and a look of dogged stupidity, are still reasoning beings – what they once were, it is hard to say.
But I take the man who, for some infraction of the law, is suddenly carried away from his home and friends – the man of mind, of reading, and reflection. Imagine him, day after day, beholding the everlasting saddle of mutton – the eternal three chickens, with the tongue in the midst of them; the same travesty of French cookery that pervades the side-dishes – the hot sherry, the sour Moselle: think of him, eating out his days through these, unchanged, unchangeable – with the same cortege of lawyers and lawyers’ wives – doctors, male and female – surgeons, subalterns, and, mayhap, attorneys: think of the old jokes he has been hearing from childhood still ringing in his ears, accompanied by the same laugh which he has tracked from its burst in boyhood to its last cackle in dotage: behold him, as he sits amid the same young ladies, in pink and blue, and the same elderly ones, in scarlet and purple; see him, as he watches every sign and pass-word that have marked these dinners for the long term of his sentence, and say if his punishment be not indeed severe.
Then think how edifying the very example of his suffering, as, with pale cheek and lustreless eye – silent, sad, and lonely – he sits there! How powerfully such a warning must speak to others, who, from accident or misfortune, may be momentarily thrown in his society.
The suggestion, I own, will demand a much more ample detail, and considerable modification. Among other precautions, for instance, more than one convict should not be admitted to any table, lest they might fraternize together, and become independent of the company in mutual intercourse, &c.
These may all, however, be carefully considered hereafter: the principle is the only thing I would insist on for the present, and now leave the matter in the hands of our rulers.
A NUT FOR THE OLD
Of all the virtues which grace and adorn the inhabitants of these islands, I know of none which can in anywise be compared with the deep and profound veneration we show to old age. Not content with paying it that deference and respect so essentially its due, we go even further, and by a courteous adulation would impose upon it the notion, that years have not detracted from the gifts which were so conspicuous in youth, and that the winter of life is as full of promise and performance, as the most budding hours of spring-time.
Walk through the halls of Greenwich and Chelsea – or, if the excursion be too far for you, as a Dubliner, stroll down to the Old Man’s Hospital, and cast your eyes on those venerable “fogies,” as they are sometimes irreverently called, and look with what a critical and studious politeness the state has invested every detail of their daily life. Not fed, housed, or clothed like the “debris” of humanity, to whom the mere necessaries of existence were meted out; but actually a species of flattering illusion is woven around them, they are dressed in a uniform; wear a strange, quaint military costume; are officered and inspected like soldiers; mount guard; answer roll-call, and mess as of yore.
They are permitted, from time to time, to clean and burnish pieces of ordnance, old, time-worn, and useless as themselves, and are marched certain short and suitable distances to and from their dining-hall, with all the “pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war.” I like all this. There is something of good and kindly feeling in perpetuating the delusion that has lasted for so many years of life, and making the very resting-place of their meritorious services recall to them the details of those duties, for the performance of which they have reaped their country’s gratitude.
The same amiable feeling, the same grateful spirit of respect, would seem, from time to time, to actuate the different governments that wield our destinies, in their promotions to the upper house.
Some old, feeble, partizan of the ministry, who has worn himself to a skeleton by late sittings; dried, like a potted herring, by committee labour; hoarse with fifty years’ cheering of his party, and deaf from the cries of “divide” and “adjourn” that have been ringing in his ears for the last cycle of his existence, is selected for promotion to the peerage. He was eloquent in his day, too, perhaps; but that day is gone by. His speech upon a great question was once a momentous event, but now his vote is mumbled in tones scarce audible. – Gratefully mindful of his “has been,” his party provide him with an asylum, where the residue of his days may be passed in peace and pleasantness. Careful not to break the spell that has bound him to life, they surround him with some semblance of his former state, suited in all respects to his age, his decrepitude, and his debility; they pour water upon the leaves of his politics, and give him a weak and pleasant beverage, that can never irritate his nerves, nor destroy his slumbers. Some insignificant bills – some unimportant appeals – some stray fragments that fall from the tables of sturdier politicians, are his daily diet; and he dozes away the remainder of life, happy and contented in the simple and beautiful delusion that he is legislating and ruling just as warrantable the while, as his compeer of Chelsea, in deeming his mock parades the forced marches of the Peninsula, and his Sunday guards the dispositions for a Toulouse or a Waterloo.
A NUT FOR THE ART UNION
The battle between the “big and little-endians” in Gulliver, was nothing to the fight between the Destructives and Conservatives of the Irish Art Union. A few months since the former party deciding that the engraved plate of Mr. Burton’s picture should be broken up; the latter protesting against the Vandalism of destroying a first-rate work of art, and preventing the full triumph of the artist’s genius, in the circulation of a print so credit’ able to himself and to his country.
The great argument of the Destructives was this: – We are the devoted friends of art – we love it – we glory in it – we cherish it: yea, we even give a guinea a-year a-piece for the encouragement of a society established for its protection and promotion; – this society pledging themselves that we shall have in return – what think ye? – the immortal honour of raising a school of painting in our native country? – the conscientious sense of a high-souled patriotism? – the prospect of future estimation at the hands of a posterity who are to benefit by our labours? Not at all: nothing of all this. We are far too great materialists for such shadowy pleasures; we are to receive a plate, whose value is in the direct ratio of its rarity, “which shall certainly be of more than the amount of our subscription,” and, maybe, of five times that sum. The fewer the copies issued, the rarer (i. e., the dearer) each impression. We are the friends of art – therefore, we say, smash the copper-plate, destroy every vestige of the graver’s art, we are supplied, and heaven knows to what price these engravings may not subsequently rise!
Now, I like these people. There is something bold, something masterly, something decided, in their coming forward and fighting the battle on its true grounds. There is no absurd affectation about the circulation of a clever picture disseminating in remote and scarce-visited districts the knowledge of a great man and a great work; there is no prosy nonsense about encouraging the genius of our own country, and showing with pride to her prouder sister, that we are not unworthy to contend in the race with her. Nothing of this. – They resolve themselves, by an open and candid admission, into a committee of printsellers, and they cry with one voice – “No free trade in ‘The Blind Girl’ – no sliding scale – no fixed duty – nothing save absolute, actual prohibition!” It is with pride I confess myself of this party: perish art! down with painting! to the ground with every effort of native genius! but keep up the price of our engraving, which, with the rapid development of Mr. Burton’s talent, may yet reach ten, nay, twenty guineas for an impression. But in the midst of my enthusiasm, a still small voice of fear is whispering ever: – Mayhap this gifted man may live to eclipse the triumphs of his youthful genius: it may be, that, as he advances in life, his talents, matured by study and cultivation, may ascend to still higher flights, and this, his early work, be merely the beacon-light that attracted men in the outset of his career, and only be esteemed as the first throes of his intellect. What is to be done in this case? It is true we have suppressed “The Blind Girl;” we have smashed that plate; but how shall we prevent him from prosecuting those studies that already are leading him to the first rank of his profession? Disgust at our treatment may do much; but yet, his mission may suggest higher thoughts than are assailable by us and our measures. I fear, now, that but one course is open; and it is with sorrow I confess, that, however indisposed to the shedding of blood, however unsuited by my nature and habits to murderous deeds, I see nothing for us but – to smash Mr. Burton.
By accepting this suggestion, not only will the engravings, but the picture itself, attain an increased value. If dead men are not novelists, neither are they painters; and Mr. Burton, it is expected, will prove no exception to the rule. Get rid of him, then, at once, and by all means. Let this resolution be brought forward at the next general meeting, by any leader of the Destructive party, and I pledge myself to second and defend it, by every argument, used with such force and eloquence for the obstruction of the copperplate. I am sure the talented gentleman himself will, when he is put in possession of our motives, offer no opposition to so natural a desire on our part, but will afford every facility in his power for being, as the war-cry of the party has it, “broken up and destroyed.”
A NUT FOR THE KINGSTOWN RAILWAY
If the wise Calif who studied mankind by sitting on the bridge at Bagdad, had lived in our country, and in our times, he doubtless would have become a subscriber to the Kingstown railway. There, for the moderate sum of some ten or twelve pounds per annum, he might have indulged his peculiar vein, while wafted pleasantly through the air, and obtained a greater insight into character and individuality, inasmuch as the objects of his investigation would be all sitting shots, at least for half an hour. Segur’s “Quatre Ages de la Vie” never marked out mankind like the half-hour trains. To the uninitiated and careless observer, the company would appear a mixed and heterogeneous mass of old and young, of both sexes – some sickly, some sulky, some solemn, and some shy. Classification of them would be deemed impossible. Not so, however; for, as to the ignorant the section of a mountain would only present some confused heap of stone and gravel, clay and marl; to the geologist, strata of divers kinds, layers of various ages, would appear, all indicative of features, and teeming with interests, of which the other knew nothing: so, to the studious observer, this seeming commixture of men, this tangled web of humanity, unravels itself before him, and he reads them with pleasure and with profit.
So thoroughly distinctive are the classes, as marked out by the hour of the day, that very little experience would enable the student to pronounce upon the travellers – while so striking are the features of each class, that “given one second-class traveller, to find out the contents of a train,” would be the simplest problem in algebra. As for myself, I never work the equation: the same instinct that enabled Cuvier, when looking at a broken molar tooth, to pronounce upon the habits, the size, the mode of life and private opinions of some antediluvian mammoth, enables me at a glance to say – “This is the apothecaries’ train – here we are with the Sandycoves.” You are an early riser – some pleasant proverb about getting a worm for breakfast, instilled into you in childhood, doubtless inciting you: and you hasten down to the station, just in time to be too late for the eight o’clock train to Dublin. This is provoking; inasmuch as no scrutiny has ever enabled any traveller to pry into the habits and peculiarities of the early voyager. Well, you lounge about till the half-after, and then the conveniency snorts by, whisks round at the end, takes a breathing canter alone for a few hundred yards, and comes back with a grunt, to resume its old drudgery. A general scramble for places ensues – doors bang – windows are shut and opened – a bell rings – and, snort! snort! ugh, ugh, away you go. Now – would you believe it? – every man about you, whatever be his age, his size, his features, or complexion, has a little dirty blue bag upon his knees, filled with something. They all know each other – grin, smile, smirk, but don’t shake hands – a polite reciprocity – as they are none of the cleanest: cut little dry jokes about places and people unknown, and mix strange phrases here and there through the dialogue, about “demurrers and declarations, traversing in prox and quo warranto.” You perceive it at once – it is very dreadful; but they are all attorneys. The ways of Providence are, however, inscrutable; and you arrive in safety in Dublin.
Now, I am not about to take you back; for at this hour of the morning you have nothing to reward your curiosity. But, with your leave, we ‘ll start from Kingstown again at nine. Here comes a fresh, jovial-looking set of fellows They have bushy whiskers, and geraniums in the button hole of their coats. They are traders of various sorts – men of sugar, soap, and sassafras – Macintoshes, molasses, mouse-traps – train-oil and tabinets. They have, however, half an acre of agricultural absurdity, divided into meadow and tillage, near the harbour, and they talk bucolic all the way. Blindfold them all, and set them loose, and you will catch them groping their way down Dame-street in half an hour.
9 1/2. – The housekeepers’ train. Fat, middle-aged women, with cotton umbrellas – black stockings with blue fuz on them; meek-looking men, officiating as husbands, and an occasional small child, in plaid and the small-pox.
10. – The lawyers’ train. Fierce-looking, dictatorial, categorical faces look out of the window at the weather, with the stern glance they are accustomed to bestow on the jury, and stare at the sun in the face, as though to say – “None of your prevarication with me; answer me, on your oath, is it to rain or not?”
10 1/2. – The return of the doctors. They have been out on a morning beat, and are going home merry or mournful, as the case may be. Generally the former, as the sad ones take to the third class. These are jocose, droll dogs: the restraint of physic over, they unbend, and chat pleasantly, unless there happen to be a sickly gentleman present, when the instinct of the craft is too strong for them; and they talk of their wonderful cures of Mr. Popkins’s knee, or Mr. Murphy’s elbow, in a manner very edifying.
11. – The men of wit and pleasure. These are, I confess, difficult of detection; but the external signs are very flash waistcoats, and guard-chains, black canes, black whiskers, and strong Dublin accents. A stray governess or two will be, found in this train. They travel in pairs, and speak a singular tongue, which a native of Paris might suppose to be lush.
A NUT FOR THE DOCTORS
Would you ask, Who is the greatest tyrant of modern days? Mr. O’Connell will tell you – Nicholas, or Es-partero. An Irish Whig member will reply, Dan himself. An attaché at an embassy would say, Lord Palmerston, – “‘Tis Cupid ever makes us slaves!” A French deputé of the Thiers party will swear it is Louis Philippe. Count D’Orsay will say, his tailor. But I will tell you it is none of these: the most pitiless autocrat of the nineteenth century is – the President of the College of Physicians.
Of all the unlimited powers possessed by irresponsible man, I know of nothing at all equal to his, who, mero motu, of his own free will and caprice, can at any moment call a meeting of the dread body at whose head he stands, assemble the highest dignitaries of the land – archbishops and bishops, chancellors, chief barons, and chief remembrancers – to listen to the minute anatomy of a periwinkle’s mustachios, or some singular provision in the physiology of a crab’s breeches-pocket: all of whom, luto non obstante, must leave their peaceful homes and warm hearths to “assist” at a meeting in which, nine cases out of ten, they take as much interest as a Laplander does in the health of the Grand Lama, or Mehemet Ali in the proceedings of Father Mathew.
By nine o’clock the curtain rises, displaying a goodly mob of medical celebrities: the old ones characterised by the astute look and searching glance, long and shrewd practice in the world’s little failings ever confers; the young ones, anxious, wide awake, and fidgetty, not quite satisfied with what services they may be called on to render in candle-snuffing and crucible work; while between both is your transition M. D. – your medical tadpole, with some practice and more pretension, his game being to separate from the great unfeed, and rub his shoulders among the “dons” of the art, from whose rich board certain crumbs are ever falling, in the shape of country jaunts, small operations, and smaller consultings. Through these promiscuously walk the “gros bonnets” of the church and the bar, with now and then – if the scene be Ireland – a humane Viceroy, and a sleepy commander of the forces. Round the room are glass cases filled with what at first blush you might be tempted to believe were the ci-devant professors of the college, embalmed, or in spirits; but on nearer inspection you detect to be a legion of apes, monkeys, and ourangoutangs, standing or sitting in grotesque attitudes. Among them, pleasingly diversified, you discover murderers’ heads, parricides’ busts in plaster, bicephalous babies, and shapeless monsters with two rows of teeth. Here you are regaled with refreshments “with what appetite you may,” and chat away the time, until the tinkle of a small bell announces the approach of the lecture.
For the most part, this is a good, drowsy, sleep-disposing affair of an hour long, written to show, that from some peculiarity lately discovered in the cerebral vessels, man’s natural attitude was to stand on his head; or that, from chemical analysis just invented, it was clear, if we live to the age of four hundred years and upwards, part of our duodenum will be coated with a delicate aponeurosis of sheet iron.
Now, with propositions of this kind I never find fault. I am satisfied to play my part as a biped in this breathing world, and to go out of it too, without any rivalry with Methuselah. But I’ll tell you with what I am by no means satisfied, – nor shall I ever feel satisfied – nor do I entertain any sentiment within a thousand miles of gratitude to the man who tells me, that food – beef and mutton, veal, lamb, &c. – are nothing but gas and glue. The wretch who found out the animiculas in clean water was bad enough. There are simple-minded people who actually take this as a beverage: what must be their feelings now, if they reflect on the myriads of small things like lobsters, with claws and tails, all fighting and swallowing each other, that are disporting in their stomachs? But only think of him who converts your cutlet into charcoal, and your steak into starch! It may stick to your ribs after that, to be sure; but will it not stick harder to your conscience? With what pleasure do you help yourself to your haunch, when the conviction is staring you in the face, that what seems venison is but adipose matter and azote? That you are only making a great Nassau balloon of yourself when you are dreaming of hard condition, and preparing yourself for the fossil state when blowing the froth off your porter.
Of latter years the great object of science would appear to be an earnest desire to disenchant us from all the agreeable and pleasant dreams we have formed of life, and to make man insignificant without making him humble. Thus, one class of philosophers labour hard to prove that manhood is but monkeyhood – that a slight adaptation of the tail to the customs of civilized life has enabled us to be seated; while the invention of looking-glasses, bear’s grease, cold cream, and macassar, have cultivated our looks into the present fashion.
Another, having felt over our skulls, gravely asserts, “There is a vis à tergo of wickedness implanted in us, that must find vent in murder and bloodshed.” While the magnetic folk would make us believe that we are merely a kind of ambulating electric-machine, to be charged at will by the first M. Lafontaine we meet with, and mayhap explode from over-pressure.
While such liberties are taken with us without, the case is worse within. Our circulation is a hydraulic problem; our stomach is a mill – a brewing vat – a tanner’s yard – a crucible, or a retort. You yourself, in all the resplendent glory of your braided frock, and your decoration of the Guelph, are nothing but an aggregate of mechanical and chemical inventions, as often going wrong as right; and your wife, in the pride of her Parisian bonnet, and robe à la Victorine, is only gelatine and adipose substance, phosphate of lime, and a little arsenic.
Now, let me ask, what remains to us of life, if we are to be robbed of every fascination and charm of existence in this fashion? And again – has medical science so exhausted all the details of practical benefit to mankind, that it is justified in these far-west explorations into the realms of soaring fancy, or the gloomy depths of chemical analysis? Hydrophobia, consumption, and tetanus are not so curable that we can afford to waste our sympathies on chimpanzees: nor is this world so pleasant that we must deny ourselves the advantage of all its illusions, and throw away the garment in which Nature has clothed her nakedness. No, no. There was sound philosophy in Peter, in the “Tale of a Tub,” who assured his guests that whatever their frail senses might think to the contrary, the hard crusts were excellent and tender mutton; but I see neither rhyme nor reason in convincing us, that amid all the triumphs of turtle and white bait, Ardennes ham and pâté de Strasbourg, our food is merely coke and glue, roach, lime, starch, and magnesia.
